The "What are you playing?" topic.

[Husar]

I have to say I played Half Life 2 mostly for the story and to *ahem* get more weapons(that's the disappointing part, you get all of them rather early except the gravity stuff), the controls thing must be the problem of playing on a console, I found the PC controls just like any other shooter.
The being on rails I agree with you but I didn't expect much else from what I'd call a standard shooter to be honest, the story, especially in episode 1 and 2 made up for that for me, especially episode 2 I found a lot of fun, you get more outside action and nice landscapes etc unlike the concrete levels before that. If you can, try to play through it, although I wouldn't consider myself an authority in the judgement of stories.

[Fragony]

No harm in trying episode II, way better then the main game but still gets an overrated slapped on it Chez Fragony's. It's like Halo, either you apreciate what it does or you hate it for what it doesn't.

[frogbeastegg]

I tried Overlord.

My horde (just 15 ) of minions are running about wearing pumpkins on their heads and wielding fearsome weapons like sticks. This is due to my crack bunch of armoured scythe wavers being killed by a single bottom bounce from a massively obese halfling. My jester is calling me names like "Silencer of the growling stomachs", and I suspect he is mocking my kindness in not turning a village's food into essence to create more minions. No matter how many times I kick him he persists in this. I need essence, lots more essence, so I can toss minions into the smelter and upgrade my gear. The sheep the village have reared for me in tribute don't go far enough. I've been asked to investigate a plague, and to do something about the elves and their weird plant-killing trees, and I've still got a castle infested with undead thingies and an unknown creature which sets fire to things to deal with. Chunks of my tower are scattered all over the landscape, and a bunch of heroes have nicked all my cool stuff. To top it all off a pushy damsel has set up camp in my tower, and is demanding I spend thousands of gold pieces renovating the place. My treasury is now empty and she's still suggesting new carpeting. And she made me fetch her luggage from an enemy infested burning cellar!

Who'd be an evil overlord, eh?

Love it.

[drone]

For yooooouuuuuu, master!

I played it, it was fun, refreshing, and fairly mindless. The PC controls are rough though, controlling your minions at a distance is a real pain, I assume this is easier on the XBox.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Sounds like Dungeon Keeper!
.

[Kekvit Irae]

Sadly, it's almost nothing like Dungeon Keeper except the concept of being an evil overlord. It's more closer to Evil Pikmin than Dungeon Keeper.
That doesn't stop it from being fun, however. I enjoyed it.

[Tiberius of the Drake]

Ive been recently playing Kotor II. Still one of my favorites

[Xiahou]

Sadly, it's almost nothing like Dungeon Keeper except the concept of being an evil overlord. It's more closer to Evil Pikmin than Dungeon Keeper.
That doesn't stop it from being fun, however. I enjoyed it.

You're saying that Pikmin weren't evil?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I just finished Blood Money. What a work of art. Outstanding.

[Viking]

FEAR: Extraction Point

I'm loving the extra tension it adds to my favourite FPS ever made, but the levels are a bit blegh.

Arguably, there is a

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The ending levels at the hospitale are just distgusting...all those ghosts always coming at you; no voice communication, all the dead Delta soldiers, the hallucinations. Gah!

[Bob the Insane]

Briefly putting aside my fear of MMOs to try out Pirates of the Burning Sea...

Fun so far... The real strength is commanding your boat/ship in battle... Great fun, looks fantastic, and more "realistic" than your average 1700 pirate style game...

We will see....

As for Mass Effect... First part of a trilogy... Story is not really full of twist and the gameplay away from the main plot does not really live up to the hype, but the second half of the main plot... We are talking a serious sci-fi action movie rollercoaster ride... A thrill a minute if you want to play that way...

Great ending....

And their are two more to come...

In the beginning it is difficult to shake the feeling "where are that lightsabers"?

But by the end of the story and world comes into it's own and you are no longer relating this to Star Wars... I played straighth though in long shifts while on vacation... It didn't lose my interest at any time...

[doc_bean]

Inspired by my Bioshock success I tried the lauded Half life 2. I brought the Orange Box purely for Portal; it seemed like a waste to have 4 games lying around untouched. Half Life 2 scores blergh/10, and returns to my shelf never to be touched again. Fiddly controls, boring scenery, boring fights, weedy weaponry, and level design which made me think of one of those on-rails corridor shooters even though I was outside occasionally. The plot might have been decent if followed further (I bailed midway through the bit on the water-ski) but the game was far too unenjoyable to slog on and find out.

Steam crashed on me whule i was playing through HL2, I was at Ravenholm. I *really* don't want to repeat that water section. Luckily TF2 is worth the price of the OB all by itself

[Husar]

What exactly is the problem? HL2 autosaves all the time so you shouldn't have to repeat a lot anyway.

[ShadesWolf]

Spartan Total warrior
Mario and Sonic at the olympics
Viva Pinata
star wars lego

[doc_bean]

What exactly is the problem? HL2 autosaves all the time so you shouldn't have to repeat a lot anyway.

My reinstalled steam/ HL2 can't find the old save files.

[Fragony]

Just download them. Half-Life 2 isn't that good altogether but you don't want to miss out on Ravenholm.

[Husar]

My reinstalled steam/ HL2 can't find the old save files.

There's a way to reinstall Steam without deleting everything, the support team told me when I had another problem. Basically you exit Steam and then delete everything in your steam folder except the SteamApps folder and Steam.exe after that start Steam normally and it will redownload everything it needs and your games etc will still be there. Probably won't work if Steam.exe is faulty or so but it worked for me(although it didn't fix my problem back then...).

[seireikhaan]

Hmm, finally decided to try out Shadow of the Colossus for PS2. Heck of a game so far, even though I've only fought 3 enemies so far.

[Fragony]

Brilliant game but I wish I could just let them be

[seireikhaan]

WHAT? NO! SLAY THEM ALL!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Dunno the whole story yet, so I'll figure it out.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Plus, they're trying to kill me as well.

[Fragony]

But they are so magnificant

Anyways, replaying Gears of War, having a much better time then my first playthrough, maybe I wanted to dislike it. Pretty amazing how the game actually looks somewhat dated, who would have thought I was absolutily blown away when it was released it's the top no more.

[Kekvit Irae]

Shadow of the Colossus is yet another game that could benefit from the processing power of next gen consoles.

[frogbeastegg]

I am the Overlord! You may bow now. If you do not wish to bow then my friendly minions will assist you by trimming your legs off at knee level.

Good game. The last third sagged, I felt. Once I had the ultimately imbued Arcanium armour (I went with 50% health regen, 50% damage reduction) and sword (stuffed it full of browns for maximum damage) I was unstoppable and only needed minions to carry and operate levers. The Dwarf area was a pain to navigate, the giant worms in the desert were tiresome to dispose of, and the final battle was not enjoyable. Definitely worth playing in spite of this. The plot twist was very neat, unusually I didn't see it coming.



Final Fantasy X is next. This will be attempt number 3. I've had it for five years now; it was one of the first games I got for my PS2. I believed back then it would be the second game I completed on it, following Kingdom Hearts. I liked the PC conversions of VII and VIII, enjoyed the demo, liked the principle, loved the battle system, thought the art style was nice enough, etc etc. It was the game for me. Oh dear. I'd reckoned without the dire PAL conversion. Borders covering 1/4 of my tiny TV, a squashed aspect ratio, 16% slowdown which Square made no effort to compensate for ... Squinting to make out a squashed Tidus jogging along so slowly he appears to hover at certain points in his animation routine killed the experience twice, both times before I met Yuna.

This time I have a larger TV. I'll be able to see what is going on properly. Whether that will aid the game or consign it to life on the shelf I cannot guess.



I'm playing Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, the PSP port of the original PS2 Disgaea, at work. Yup, still as sprawling and addictive as the original. I now live in hope - and terror! - that Nippon Ichi will port their other SRPGs to the PSP. I own the lot, you see, and have only played the first Disgaea. They eat up hundreds of hours and having a portable version kills the feeble excuses I have been using to protect myself against losing a year or two to them. :curses the PSP's sleep mode: If it was still a case of needing to play for an hour at a stretch I'd still be safe.

[frogbeastegg]

Woo! Between the upscaling options offered by the PS3 and the TV's own zoom and ratio settings I've managed to drag FFX kicking and screaming into the land of full screen display. It's not even pixilated; the game looks great for its age. No fix for the goofy animation caused by the 16% speed reduction but you can't have everything. Heh, I'm only pleased that I didn't have to stick with the settings it defaults to - the picture only used 1/4 of the TV screen thanks to the jumbo PAL borders and lack of widescreen.

Turns out it's a good game when you can see what's happening.

[TevashSzat]

I must say, unfortunately, I'm still stuck in my Diablo II vortex. Can't bring myself to quit again and am on my 7ish Patriarch/Matriarch.

I don't even have any other games installed on my comp due to some complicated comp issues except for Warcraft 3 atm, which I rarely even play now except for the occasional Dota game with friends through Hamachi.

[Fragony]

Woo! Between the upscaling options offered by the PS3 and the TV's own zoom and ratio settings I've managed to drag FFX kicking and screaming into the land of full screen display. It's not even pixilated; the game looks great for its age. No fix for the goofy animation caused by the 16% speed reduction but you can't have everything. Heh, I'm only pleased that I didn't have to stick with the settings it defaults to - the picture only used 1/4 of the TV screen thanks to the jumbo PAL borders and lack of widescreen.

Turns out it's a good game when you can see what's happening.

tip, use the advanced setup, otherwise that blue guy turns out to be quite useless.

[Xiahou]

I just finished "Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance"- came in at around 35hrs of game time. I was finally motivated to go back to the stack and finish this one due to the release of the Wii sequel. It was definitely a lot of fun, with some truly relentless AI. The ending was satisfying, but I would've liked more FMV and less reading.

I'm playing various Wii games atm, but I think my next focus will be on completing Persona3. I was absolutely in love with this game when I started playing it, but about 60hrs in I got to my first pure grinding(previously the side-quests had sufficient for leveling) and got side tracked with some newer games. I'm guessing I probably have a good 20hrs left and am determined to see the story concluded.

[drone]

I'm back to MTW, started up a Danes/Early/Hard campaign. I haven't played a grand campaign in a while, before I jumped to DoW, I spent a lot of time playing VI campaigns. Maybe I'll remember to take screenies and post an empire writeup in the Main Hall this time.

[Craterus]

More Football Manager than I should.

[Viking]

Playing CoD 4 MP still, grinding for my golden AK-47.